As the deadline passes for the ultimatim set by President Bush, I’ve been doing a bit of reading around the internet that discusses the war. This is something that I’ve been paying a lot of attention to, but doing little talking about. Truth be told, my wife and I have been so overwhelmed with grief that it was all we could do to pray together.

Salon: See no evil. As one watches protest marches, antiwar advertising and local arts events, one has to wonder whether the left has really weighed the moral issues posed by the horrors of Saddam’s regime—weighed life by life the repression of the 24 million Iraqis who live in a ruthless police state, not to mention the thousands or tens of thousands who have been imprisoned without trial, tortured, exiled or killed. It sometimes seems that the left is so averse to war, especially war waged by America, that it is prepared to turn a blind eye to even the most ghastly realities. Perhaps it is because the left no longer sees these realities that its antiwar arguments tend to justify continuation of the status quo. The sympathetic position of Edward W. Lempinen surprised me and I was encouraged by his attention to the humanitarian reasons for war in Iraq. By the way, you’ll have to watch a brief commercial in order to read the full three-page article.

Jason Kottke: The war. The bottom line is, the U.S. isn’t going to war with Iraq for altruistic reasons, no matter what we say. Everything the leaders of the United States have ever done, from the Revolutionary War right up to the present, they have done for money and power. Make the whole world a capitalist democracy and everyone benefits a little, but the U.S., as the biggest member of the group, benefits the most. That’s what the American brand of capitalism is all about: we gain the support of the little guy by improving his situation a little so that we can improve our situation greatly. While I don’t share Jason’s extreme skepticism of the motives of our government—only time will be able to tell us what they really are—I do share a lot of his perspectives about the politics of power and agree with his criticism of the pundits of both war and peace.

Antithesis: Is it right to fight? What should be our own perspective on military preparedness?…From my own study of Scripture I would say that to refuse to do what I can for those who are under the power of oppressors is nothing less than the failure of Christian love…This is why I am not a pacifist. Pacifism in this poor fallen world in which we live‑this lost world‑means that we desert the people who need our greatest help. Francis Schaeffer has an amazing way of making sense of complex issues—he’s only one of the evangelicals quoted by the Antithesis article (and, incidentally, the only one I really read).

It goes like this, we have no choice; the minarets,
The wailing voice
And vaguely Celtic music fills the air
We choose a foreigner to hate,
The new Iraq gets more irate
We really know nothing about them, and no one cares
Aladdin and the forty thieves
Enhanced by brand new special effects
Saddam and his cow disease spiced up
With some gratuitous sex
A movie’s made, a war is won
A low-speed chase, a smoking gun
Distracts us while the actor takes the stand

- Barenaked Ladies, Sell Sell Sell

Be it the Rutgers classes that I’ve taken or the InterVarsity experience I’ve had, but I’ve been finding myself just slightly left of center about this issue. While the motives for war are in doubt, the point of these articles is clear: there is a time—in order to deal with problems that are worse than war—when fighting is justified in order to help people. Lempinen makes the point well: though we may not be 100% sure of why we’re going to war, we are. This is no longer the time for debating, it’s now the time for accountability. We need to make sure that the administration that pledges hope and support for the people delivers on that promise.

Update: NPR is providing continuing audio and web based coverage of the conflict in Iraq for you nightowls.